ENFANTS TERRIBLES

Introduction
The EU Cohesion Policy investments 2014-2020 will support
Latvia’s continuous and steady progress towards its national
climate goals for 2020 and 2030. However, the investments
will support the rather incoherent existing policies and
strategies and will not have a significant impact on improving
the overall strategic approach to reach sustainability and
transform the energy system.
• The National Development Plan for Latvia 2020 largely
neglects climate change mitigation and most of the
strategic priorities do not refer to impact on
environment and climate change.
• The Sustainable Development Strategy of Latvia 2030
remains an island, not a blueprint for long-term
investment plans.
• Climate change mitigation as a horizontal principle
is poorly implemented in the Partnership Agreement,
the Operational Programme ‘Growth and Employment’
and the project selection criteria.
• EU Cohesion Policy investments in the energy sector
are mostly determined by political debates on gas
import diversification considerations and the
investments do not support the transformation of the
energy sector.
• EU Cohesion Policy investments do not support the
use of sustainable renewable resources and
diversification of renewables. The investments are
focused on the development of use of biomass (fuel
wood) only and development of wind power and solar
power is neglected.
• EU Cohesion Policy Funds’ allocations for energy
efficiency are insufficient compared to the poor
situation regarding energy efficiency in residential
buildings. A more comprehensive and strategic policy
focusing on attracting private investments and
development of a competitive market for ESCOs is
needed.
• EU Cohesion Policy investments in the transport
sector do not meet GHG reduction objectives although
this is declared as a strategic objective. The majority
of the investments in the transport sector have
little impact on GHG reduction and a high share of
emissions remains unaddressed.
The structure of Latvia’s economy has changed drastically
since 1991 – the year of regaining independence – from a high
energy consuming industrialised economy to one dominated
by trade and services 98 . The transition has no doubt had a
positive impact on decreasing the GHG emissions level and
today Latvia has the lowest per capita GHG emissions in the
EU. It is very likely that Latvia will achieve its national 2020
GHG emissions target by 2020 – and will not increase non-ETS
sector emissions by more than 17% compared to 2005.
Although GHG emissions have decreased drastically in
the energy sector (a third of the 1990 level), this sector
remains the largest polluter among all sectors, i.e., transport,
agriculture, industrial processes, waste management. Even
though the transition to a lower energy consuming economy
after the collapse of the Soviet Union opened potential
development paths towards reducing GHG emissions,
reducing GHG emissions is rather on the political table
thanks to the EU climate change policy framework. Latvia`s
official commitment to treat the transition to a low-carbon
economy as a priority does not lead to comprehensive
actions or tap the full potential that Latvia has to transit to a
truly sustainable clean energy economy. Public discussions
on terminating dependency on Russian gas have been
dominated by discussions on diversification of natural gas
supplies which has pushed aside discussions on investments
in locally available renewable energy sources (RES). In
addition, over-reliance on widely available, but unsustainable,
biomass (fuel wood) as an energy source, indicates that the
Latvian government is not so far thinking with a long term
perspective. The lack of ambition to use Latvia’s full potential
of renewables is also reflected in the national allocations
of the European Structural and Investment Funds for the
2014-2020 programming period. According to the Partnership
Agreement (PA) for the European Union Investment Funds
Programming 2014–2020 between Latvia and the European
Commission, the EU will provide EUR 4.51 billion worth of
investment. All Cohesion Policy investment funds (European
Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund,
the Cohesion Fund) are compiled under one operational
programme - ‘Growth and Employment’ (OP) approved by
the EC on November 13, 2014. EUR 755 million is earmarked
for investments to support climate change objectives which
accounts for 17.20% of total Cohesion Policy investment in
Latvia. A major question is, however, how much this 17.20%
contributes to the mitigation of climate change.
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‘Climate’s enfants terribles: how new Member States’ misguided use of EU funds is holding back Europe’s clean energy transition’